Meade starts a conversation over at Isthmus (where they basically loathe him).

ADDED: The people over there in the Isthmus forum don't understand that Meade is quoting a brochure from Obama's literary agent. They think he's just bringing up the old "birther" controversy. The dumbness is deep.

On a broader note, last night I had terrible insomnia, and I went on an adventure following a link, and links thereafter, posted by an obviously crazy conservative in a thread here named John Henry.

It was absolutely scintillating fiction -- about Obama having erotic homosexual encounters at some Democratic gala circa 1996. It was a wonderful reminder that the right engages in the same foolish paranoia that the left does, and more so right now since the opposite party is in charge. (I remember the goofy shit the left was talking about during the W. years nostalgically now.)

Romney would be very wise to use this occasion (along with the goofy ads that some Super Pac wants to place about Jeremiah Wright) to say that Obama is merely in over his head in an awful economic mess he has made worse. Let's talk about that, and about what I, Mitt, am going to do about that.

The embarrassing part of all this is the failure of anyone serious to vet this young twerp who though he was going to run for president. Now, they have to attack anyone who goes near that steaming pile, which still gives off noxious fumes years later. The story of how he got to be a Senator is bad enough. It was told years ago in a left wing Chicago paper. Here is the story

Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city’s most popular black call-in radio ­program.

I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:

“He said, ‘Cliff, I’m gonna make me a U.S. Senator.’”

“Oh, you are? Who might that be?”

“Barack Obama.”

Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.

“I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen,” State Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. “Barack didn’t have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.

“The autopsy report shows traces of the drug THC, which is found in marijuana, in Martin's blood and urine.

The autopsy also shows that Zimmerman shot Martin from a distance of between 1 inch and 18 inches away, bolstering Zimmerman's claim that he shot Martin during a struggle that landed Zimmerman on his back, Martin straddling him and banging Zimmerman's head on the ground.

Martin's autopsy report also revealed that there was a quarter-inch by half-inch abrasion on the left fourth finger of Martin, another indication of a possible struggle. The teen, who lived in Miami, was in Sanford while serving a suspension for a bag of marijuana being discovered in his possession.

Later today, a trove of documents that are part of the discovery in Zimmerman's trial are expected to be released on a website run by the state's attorney, including 67 CDs worth of documents, video of Martin on the night of the shooting, his autopsy report and videos of Zimmerman's questioning by police. ”

The "natural-born citizen" clause is clear as mud. If the SCOTUS were to find that it only refers to those born on American soil of two American citizens, or that, instead, it could as well refer to someone born on Mars of one Martian and one American citizen, who would be surprised? Either decision would be more supportable than the majority's in Roe.

I invite you to debunk the evidence that the long-form BC, available here for inspection or download, was created using Adobe Illustrator. Then you may explain why Barack Obama did not correct the promotional booklet produced in 1991 by his literary agency, Acton & Dystel.

I do not insist that Obama is not eligible for the office (gods help us if the "brither" theory proves true) but displays of foam-flecked rage such as your post at 17:19 CDT only bolsters the suspicion there is something being hidden by Obama and his minions.

I think the most likely explanation is the one which fits what we have seen so far with this president: He is lazy. He either never bothered to check the bio (lazy) or he checked it and never bothered to fix it (also lazy).

Breitbart.com's take is that he was born in USA. That's my belief, too. Fools won't read any further before they claim this is a birther story, it is not.

The theory is that in an effort to appear as the exotic "other" he falsely claimed Kenyan ancestry, until he had to un-claim it to run for president. This explains the dearth of college documents perhaps, as he may have used the Kenyan-birth ruse to get placement, like the fantastically brilliant Liz Warren did with her Cherokee lie.

It's certainly not too far-fetched to be looked into, as the birther claim surely is.

Left is glomming onto "fact-checking error" defense, which of course presumes that a "fact" of Kenyan birth was posited (by whom?) and was left uncorrected. Someone is lying.

If I was a sly Democratic operative, I think I would do two things. One, I would realize that Obama is in in real, serious trouble electorally because of the economy. Two, and this is why I would get paid huge, I would realize that a plan to win the election might be to leak out certain catnip stories that make segments on the right go nuts, thereby allowing the right to paint itself as dangerously unfit for leadership, and making my candidate look moderate.

"This isn't damning legally. Obama would still be an American citizen eligible for the presidency if he was born in Kenya to an American mother, in my opinion.

This is moot since I think we both agree he was born in Hawaii. But his mom would not have qualified if her son had been born outside the US. She was only 18 and therefore could not have lived in the United States for 5 years after the age of 14.

"For birth between December 24, 1952 and November 13, 1986, a period of ten years, five after the age of fourteen, is required for physical presence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions to transmit U.S. citizenship to the child.) "

barack just reminded the ladies of 'the view' of how exotic his name is and yet he, somehow, bravely fights on and overcomes. not very suprising that he would let a lit-agent paint him as an international man of mystery.

Quaestor -- Do you think the birth announcement was not in the newspaper contemporaneously?

Or are you of the school that believes that some mysterious power brokers groomed Obama for a spectacularly failed presidency from birth -- one that included a stop at utterly mediocre Occidental College?

Incidentally, the campus scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark were filmed at Occidental. Gorgeous place.

The Dystal part of the company is Jane Dystal. She's the one who heard about Obama as the first black to be president of the Harvard Law Review and signed him for a book.

After the book was a success, Obama went to a different publisher. Along about 2007 or 08, Dystal became incommunicado for a while, for mysterious reasons. She is an aggressive self-promoter, so she wasn't being shy. Then it was announced that she had reached a settlement with Obama. Nothing had been said previously about a suit. My guess at the time: they gave Obama a big advance although he hadn't written anything, so they must have written a multi-book contract; he may have gotten out of it somehow, but once he was running for president, Dystal was in a much stronger position. I assumed it was because he never wrote the book. Now I would guess she was in a stronger position: he had claimed Kenyan birth.

"This isn't damning legally. Obama would still be an American citizen eligible for the presidency if he was born in Kenya to an American mother, in my opinion.

Your opinion is wrong. He is an American citizen if he chooses to affirm his citizenship after attaining majority, i.e. 18 years old. But if he's born in Kenya, he is not a "natural born" American citizen. Ergo not qualified to be president according to that pesky piece of parchment called the U.S. Constitution.

DBP -- That's not the correct reading of that law, as it is applied daily. You can leave and come back. Under your reading, any teenager who took a day trip to Canada risks the nationality of her child.

Quaestor -- I see you are a birther and a grammar scold. What fun you must be dinner parties. Of course, you've never been to a dinner party, but in theory...

One of the problems with Obama is that his entire past seems so shady. It is as if he is intentionally trying to keep as much of his past as possible out of public view. No anecdotes of his younger days have shown up from people who knew him. People appear to have been quite effectively silenced somehow.

I just want to see the mans college transcripts. If I am hiring a man billed as the smartest President evah, I want to see if that is true. So far from his performance, I have serious doubts.

Have we been snookered? How could we possibly know? Forget the birther thing, I just want to see his college grades.

Why do college grades matter? It's absurd. I assume that the hidden assumption is affirmative action.

Allow me to put your mind at ease. Harvard Law is really, really hard to get into. Obama almost assuredly benefited from affirmative action, but you may rest assured that his grades and test scores were still tremendous. A person with a 170 on the LSAT (close to perfect) and a 3.5 GPA stands a very low chance of getting admitted.

Moreover, who gives a shit about his grades? What are you people, academic voyeurs? What matters is that Obama is in way over his head on the economy. (He's following Bush's foreign policy, so I am essentially fine with it.) He is not a visionary. He is not a statesman. He does not what to do in his job.

Considering how left-of-center (being generous here) our academics are today I doubt any historian with top credentials will tackle the mysteries of the Obama bio in my lifetime for fear of blacklash from department chairs, tenure denial or revocation, social isolation, etc., or just out of frustration drop the whole matter because of the obstacles that are thrown in the path of anyone seeking to dissipate the pall of secrecy which surrounds our President's past.

If things proceed as they are now (and likely to continue, gods willing) this time next year there will be much discussion of an Obama Library. Where? Honolulu? Chicago? Nairobi? Does anyone believe the real warts-and-all records will be housed there for scholars to examine (that's the excuse offered for presidential libraries whenever the hat is passed around)? Or will it be more shuck-and-jive?

Yeah, well, nothing like poking the bubble some folks live it. I think (but dont know for a fact because the MSM is so lame) it's probably similar to the granny Warren dealio, Kenya sounds so cool, so exotic so lets just check that box kinda thing.

Here's what makes this racist. You grind grind grind on minorities and representatives of disadvantaged groups when they make it in your hatefully closed mean caucasian world. You do extend offers to help but to take advantage of those one must stretch and bend and twist to fit in and, and then most likely not even make it but your kids still have a chance so there's that, and if not them then their kids might, so this fitting can take a long time, and they twist and change and adapt and still barely meet the requirements of fitting into your strange alien world and twist more to fit for you, to fit in for you, to satisfy your fitting-in requirements before getting on with your diversity, as you define diversity, least of the twists are the silly ass applications for every little thing, every step of the way and then each year thereafter, as one struggles with their own identity, and finally makes it, finally does go through all that and actually finishes, with help yes, but so what, and there you are then at the end with your axes and your chainsaws, snarling and twisting your Snidely Whiplash mustaches, eager to chop it all down.

Seven Machos wrote:Do you think the birth announcement was not in the newspaper contemporaneously? Or are you of the school that believes that some mysterious power brokers groomed Obama for a spectacularly failed presidency from birth -- one that included a stop at utterly mediocre Occidental College?

I try not to form theories before the evidence is in. How about you? From the tone of your question I take it you've reached a conclusion. Based on what is my question.

The evidence that has come to light is contradictory. I learned from a highly experienced prosecutor that contradictory evidence is the norm when a case is first opened, and usually indicates there is much investigative work to be done.

Breitbart.com's take is that he was born in USA. That's my belief, too. Fools won't read any further before they claim this is a birther story, it is not.

The theory is that in an effort to appear as the exotic "other" he falsely claimed Kenyan ancestry, until he had to un-claim it to run for president. This explains the dearth of college documents perhaps, as he may have used the Kenyan-birth ruse to get placement, like the fantastically brilliant Liz Warren did with her Cherokee lie.

and I found it odd that certain people here are trying to spike the topic by making it about the crazy birthers...

I learned from a highly experienced prosecutor that contradictory evidence is the norm when a case is first opened

So you've opened a case, then, Detective? That's great. I know this shoeshine guy named Johnny who can give you the word on the street. He may play dumb at first, but offer him a few bucks and he'll sing like a canary in a three-penny opera.

Lem wrote:If Obama was white you all be talking a differnt (sic) tune.

I try to sing my tunes, Lem. If Obama was a conservative Republican would you sing a different tune, I wonder. Or would you disparage him as an "Uncle Tom" or a "house nigger" as many on your side of the fence have disparaged Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, and other conservatives who had the temerity to escape the plantation.

Quaestor -- Do you think the birth announcement was not in the newspaper contemporaneously?

Hey, just because it was in the paper doesn't mean it didn't happen somewhere else.

Or are you of the school that believes that some mysterious power brokers groomed Obama for a spectacularly failed presidency from birth -- one that included a stop at utterly mediocre Occidental College?

Not so mysterious. I think Cashill is the one who says the Ayers family had an eye on him for a long time.

Do I believe it? To be sure, somebody has been watching out for him all these years, greasing the skids, especially if he isn't as brilliant as we all believe.

Then again, sociopaths are very good at getting people to do their bidding.

So you've opened a case, then, Detective? That's great. I know this shoeshine guy named Johnny who can give you the word on the street. He may play dumb at first, but offer him a few bucks and he'll sing like a canary in a three-penny opera.

Ed -- The goofy left was hilarious from 2000 to 2008 because it had a silly demonology whereby this cabal of conservatives was simultaneously evil and stupid.

The goofy right, which apparently includes you, is hilarious now because it has a silly demonology whereby Obama was groomed for the presidency by communist revolutionaries and simultaneously that Obama has been a political disaster.

The lot of you are equally foolish.

Please recall that the left had its convoluted arguments for how such an obviously fallacious argument could stand before you proceed in a response.

It was the sentence "My working theory is he was born in Hawaii." Reading comprehension not a problem there, hoss. Anything that follows a serious iteration of this sentence is simply flawed at best, asinine in the middle, batshit crazy at worst.

I am not a conservative. I do not support Romney. I still hold out hope for Paul (or Palin) neither of whom are conservatives. Both are libertarian, though both don't yell too loud when they get called conservative.

I prefer to identify as a "liberal" but will accept libertarian, classical liberal or minarchist.

Please do NOT call me a conservative. I think it is insulting.

If Romney is the candidate, I am probably supporting Obama for reasons I've discussed here on several occasions. Why vote for Obama Lite (Romney) when we can have the real thing?

I would appreciate an apology and/or retraction for calling me a conservative.

It was the sentence "My working theory is he was born in Hawaii." Reading comprehension not a problem there, hoss. Anything that follows a serious iteration of this sentence is simply flawed at best, asinine in the middle, batshit crazy at worst.

Harrogate,Your reaction revealed you as someone who cannot deal with any challenges to all the foolish things you hold so dear. Just like the goofballs at Isthmus.

You might as well own it. Your inability to grasp reality may pass for reason among the the more batshit crazies among the left, but not among normal people.

But don't worry...in ten years or so, you'll forget you were this far in the tank for a loser like Obama. You certainly won't admit it.

I have no love for Obama, or even particular like. But I recognize ugliness when i see it, and that thread she links to is plain garden variety ugly. Meade's posts are ugly.

But uglier still, it seems. Uglier still is the idea, implicit in in your comments about me, someone whose views political or otherwise, you know very little about, that only some sort of an Obama fan would call it out.

"I agree with Meade's theory. I've always thought Obama's reason for hiding his college records wasn't the grades but the applications he filled out."

I never really thought it was his grades either. My suspicion was that he got into Harvard Law as a "legacy" student. But I don't know if that would actually work or not. But his father went to Harvard, right?

The notion that he might have gotten into Harvard Law by presenting himself as more "interesting" than he really was, is an intriguing notion.

Certainly "bios" try to make a person sound as interesting as possible, in a "owned by two cats" instead of "owner of two cats" sort of way.

A glaring factual error *might* not be corrected, so long as it was not *repeated*. The charge that the "interesting" bio information was on purpose on Obama's part to get him ahead is a pretty serious charge.

Actually I did -- a cheap parody of cheap detective fiction -- though the exact citation rang no bells. Now that I know the source I also know something of your sense of humor. I shall deem it youthful to avoid further conflict.

I labelled your reply a facile dodge because it was. I posed a serious question which you chose to answer with a snarky quip.

The bio proves what we already know... Obama will/does say whatever benefits him at the moment. Most politicians do. He says one thing one day, the opposite the next. Then whenever questioned the response is... I think I've made myself perfectly clear.

My *working theory* is that China is a real place, my never having actually set foot there, I have to take evidence for its existence second hand.

My working theory is that Obama was born in Hawaii. There is no real reason to think he wasn't. (And according to Mick it doesn't matter anyway because his mother was a minor and his father a UK subject, and McCain not a "natural born" citizen nor eligible to be president *either*... not one of those arguments will get the time of day from me.)

A bio stating outright that this law student was born in Africa of an American anthropologist mother (Waitaminute, I thought she was a minor?) has got to be interesting to anyone with a brain.

How is it hateful or nasty or whatever it supposedly is to talk about how Obama was presenting himself while he was in law school?

How is how Obama was representing himself in law school not a relevant and interesting story?

And comparing it to Warren and her coloring up her own bio, clearly shows the context of the inquiry.

Was Obama telling his instructors and classmates and the *school* that he was born in Africa? Why?

This isn't a birther issue. It has to do with character, a shifty and unreliable character and possibly complete lack thereof. And, yeah, sure, questioning character is raaacist and a distraaaction from issues important to Real Americans. This sort of thing NEVER happens to white politicians and all Real Americans are focused like a laser Things Conservatives Care About. The fact that the most basic biographical information and accomplishments are shrouded in phony mystery and subject to bizarrely convenient "clerical errors" does not speak well for character. This is something even a nitwit can grasp and consider.

Ed -- The goofy left was hilarious from 2000 to 2008 because it had a silly demonology whereby this cabal of conservatives was simultaneously evil and stupid.

The goofy right, which apparently includes you, is hilarious now because it has a silly demonology whereby Obama was groomed for the presidency by communist revolutionaries and simultaneously that Obama has been a political disaster.

I did say that there's a theory out there that Zero was groomed by the Ayers family. That one rests on the Ayers' mailman.

I then said it looked like someone greased the skids for him, and they certainly did in Chicago and from the time he began his run for POTUS.

I also said sociopaths, and Zero certainly qualifies, were good at manipulating people, so there's another explanation besides a secret cabal, which Seven wants to believe all of us on the Right, mostly not goofy, believe in because it makes him all warm and fuzzy inside.

Seven, in his somewhat pathetic attempt to feel superior to both the Right and Left, made a big assumption without considering the rhetorical question I asked, "Do I believe it".

I know this is not Meade's exact point, but one thing that makes some people scratch their heads is why questions about John McCain's eligibility were not made an issue to the same extent as questions about Obama's birth. So then some minds wander to: what are the differences between the two situations and do they adequately account for the differences between how the two men have been treated?

John Henry wrote:I still hold out hope for Paul (or Palin) neither of whom are conservatives. Both are libertarian, though both don't yell too loud when they get called conservative.

Most honest people would consider libertarianism to be a subset of conservatism. So are you a Republican, a Democrat, an independent (a contemptible position, in my estimation) or yet another partisan of that abortion known as the Libertarian Party?

One has to admit, this brochure throws more fuel on the fire of his origin / birth certificate. And that fire was only doused 10-12months ago when he finally released the BC copy. If he had documented & disclosed his birth fully during his first campaign, no one would give a frig about this brochure.

Obama... was born to a US citizen, and even if it was overseas, he would be a US citizen by birth.

Birthers... like Mick (famously)... make a difference between someone who is a US citizen by birth and a second, better, class of US citizen by birth. As if there are *three* separate classes of US citizens... people who are born a citizen, people who are born a citizen within the borders of the US, and people who have immigrated and naturalized.

The notion being that one is supposedly more loyal if one's birth water soaked into American soil.

McCain is an excellent example of why this is profoundly stupid. As is Obama for that matter!

McCain was born and grew up in the context of American parents in service to their country. How utterly *offensive* is it to claim that a child born to US parents overseas *by necessity* of their service, is second class and ineligible to be POTUS? While the child with a" Marxist idiot of a mother" who was born on US soil, and thus had the requisite birth water soaking in happen, is assumed to have greater loyalty and a greater notion of American identity?

So disappointing to see here comments like the one from Steve Austin saying there is "zero" chance this was an accident, etc.

How can you be so certain without talking to the people involved and seeing some evidence, etc.? Seems likely that most of us don't know what happened for sure? Shouldn't we reserve judgment w/o more facts?

Have you ever been a victim of some misstatements about your own actions from even a week or two earlier? This was over 20 years ago? Think there's more to the story?

Do we all believe for sure that Romney "bullied" some kid in high school?

PWS -- I think you pose a very good question. I will take a stab. First of all, as I am fascinated by birthers to the point of it being a problem, I know that the hardcore among them say that McCain was also ineligible for the presidency. But I do get the sense that this contention is, in some serious way, lip service.

I think the issue is simply a misunderstanding of the Constitution, combined with both strong anti-immigrant views and a certain blood-and-soil outlook on the world. I could write a treatise here. I won't. I'll just elucidate the first point: a lot of people believe that "natural-born citizen" means born in the United States to two certified Americans. That's wrong, by law and by philosophy and by any decent set of morals, but that's the belief, and I think that's where it all goes wrong initially.

"I'm pretty sure that you don't "accidentally" say a black dude was born in Africa. They either said that because it's true, or because they thought it would get him more interest from the intelligentsia. So the question is, was he lying then or is he lying now?" -- saw this comment after Chiat's story in NY Magazine -- the one Drudge highlighted -- and thought it summed the whole thing up quite well.

"one thing that makes some people scratch their heads is why questions about John McCain's eligibility were not made an issue to the same extent as questions about Obama's birth. So then some minds wander to: what are the differences between the two situations and do they adequately account for the differences between how the two men have been treated?"

Ooooh! Ooooh! Mistah Kottair???Is it ... [dunh, dunh, dunh] raaaaaccism? I believe it must be because McCain is white so clearly the other white people were cutting him slack!

(Perhaps "some minds" should consider the strong likelihood that the claim that McCain was ineligible was a specious effort by the Obama campaign to create a false equivalency between the two candidates in order to give Obama cover for not producing evidence of his own eligibility.)

[One] thing that makes some people scratch their heads is why questions about John McCain's eligibility were not made an issue to the same extent as questions about Obama's birth.

For those who may not know or have forgotten, the difference was this: In McCain's case it was "Yes, I was born on foreign territory, pacifically the Panama Canal Zone, but I'm eligible to hold the office, and here's why..." whereas the Obama approach was "Shut up! How dare you question me? Of course I'm eligible for the office, because nobody but a fucking moron would doubt it. Don't ask to see my documents, they're none of your business. If you pry I'll send dozens of costly lawyers to block you path..." and on and on. That's the difference.

I assumed that Barack Obama concealed his college applications for one of two reasons: either he lied about being a foreign student, or he said some things on his application that would be embarrassing for someone looking to become president (say, saying how his exposure to foreign cultures made him so much better than the average American).

To answer your last question first, I am not now and never have been affiliated with any political party. Including the Libertarian Party.

I ran independently. I hold the distinction of being the first presidential candidate from Puerto Rico. Most independent candidates get at least 1-2 votes, their own and perhaps the spouse. Since we do not vote for Prez here, I also hold the distinction of not receiving a single popular vote. How many candidates can make that claim? Even my mother didn't vote for me.

Re liberals/libertarians/Libertarians:

I suggest that if you think libertarians are some subset of conservatives, you need to go do some research.

Conservatives, just like progressives, believe in large amounts of government control over our lives. I don't see a lot of difference in the amount of control both want to have, they just want to control different things. And they want the goodies for their friends.

A pox on both houses. Liberals (or "libertarians" if you prefer) believe in the bare minimum of control and influence by govt over our lives. We also believe that what control is necessary should be exercised at the lowest level.

A city/county should not so something an individual can do, a state should not do what a city can do and so on.

What liberal want is to be left alone.

If you look at a continuum of liberty running from complete anarchy (no govt at all) to total locked down control (like North Korea) liberals are way over towards the anarchy end. Not anarchy, we agree that some govt is necessary but toward that end of the spectrum.

Conservatives and progs are way over to the other side. Not all the way, though some more than others. They all believe that lots of govt interference is necessary.

There seems to be a lot of back and forth on how Obama's literary agent went for years saying that Obama was born in Kenya before correcting it. Let me tell you something, editors trust their subject-matter experts for facts. I will show a document to, say, an engineer. I will ask them: "Check this for technical accuracy." Then they check it. Likewise, I will give a bio to someone or their office and ask them: "Make sure the information here is correct."

Many, many times it comes back to me with an OK. Then, when I do a sanity check, I find things that don't match with -other- bios or documents already out there, and have to go back to them. Every now and again, something slips through that is incorrect in their online bios that we have access to that they did not fix. There is no media conspiracy here; the editor was merely too lazy to fact check his or her expert, and the expert never bothered to read it once it was published.

So, in short, I'm going with incompetence. The upside? It meshes with everything else we know about how he runs his operation.

"... Obama was groomed for the presidency by communist revolutionaries and simultaneously that Obama has been a political disaster." A Marxist President? A political disaster? Yes--for the United States.

Classes of citizenship used to be a much bigger issue, but the post-Civil War Amendments put an end to all that. You could read a whole line of cases.

In light of the 14th Amendment and in light of the obvious fact that we have here a political question, there is no way that any appellate court would rule any person ineligible for the presidency who is at least 35 years old and who isn't obviously a naturalized citizen or a foreigner.

So Obama claimed to be from Kenya when we was a college student? Izzat so? Or was someone was sloppy while trying to sell books?I'm leaning towards the latter, but its hard to dismiss the former.For the record, I don't believe Obama was born in Kenya. Back in the 60's, air travel was a long, arduous undertaking. Would you really take the time to bring your wife to your homeland, just so she could meet your first wife?

In light of the 14th Amendment and in light of the obvious fact that we have here a political question, there is no way that any appellate court would rule any person ineligible for the presidency who is at least 35 years old and who isn't obviously a naturalized citizen or a foreigner.

Quaestor -- You let me know when an appellate court rules on a case concerning this issue on the substance and merits of the case -- not on some procedural ground or by saying that it's a political question, but by overruling the other two branches and current law about what natural born means and does not mean, or what it can mean.

If you look at a continuum of liberty running from complete anarchy (no govt at all) to total locked down control (like North Korea) liberals are way over towards the anarchy end. Not anarchy, we agree that some govt is necessary but toward that end of the spectrum.

Conservatives and progs are way over to the other side. Not all the way, though some more than others. They all believe that lots of govt interference is necessary.

There is no "spectrum". Libertarians, liberals, progressives, conservatives etc all want to give people the freedom to do certain things and restrict their freedom to do certain other things. What makes individual people libertarian or conservative or whatever is which things they want to prevent people from doing and which things they want to allow people to do.

As far as civic freedom is concerned, conservatives want a lot of it and progressives and libertarians want to restrict it.

there are different sorts of freedoms and many are in tension with one another.

The sooner we get Obama actually out of office, the sooner someone will be able to put together a biography that tells us the truth of all of the large number of things that Obama has been lying to us about.

Enrico Pallazzo! Best damn tenor/umpire ever. He never said he was born in Kenya.

@7M

You're gonna be waitin' a long time, if you think any American court is gonna touch that hot potato. Clarence Thomas admitted that the SCOTUS is dodging the question.

That plus ALL the BS surrounding the place of birth...the missing international flight data for Obamas birth week, etc...you got to admit looks pretty damn bad.

As far as experts to examine the original BC, how bout someone that wasn't a reporter, or a democratic official. The Donald would be a good choice. George Clooney would be a bad one. Walter Williams, or even Rush would be good choices, because lets face it, the main stream media lost their credibility 3 presidents ago.

All I want is a reasonable explanation for Obama having a SS# from Conn, why he still hasn't produced a valid BC, why the flight data for international flights is missing for his birth week, why his grandmother said she witnessed his birth, why there are signs in Kenya saying BO was born here!, etc...

A better explanation than it's that way because SHUT UP!

Ps. letting out you worked in the State Department doesn't do much for your street cred as an unbiased observer. Just sayin'.

Many authors I know of have complained about publicity departments and art departments that clearly never read their books and wrote promo blurbs or supplied cover art that was just plain wrong.

The first printing of my UML book had credits for another author on the back. The publisher had copied and pasted the cover layout from their previous book, and they never noticed that they pasted in the credits as well.

I never noticed, either. I didn't notice until a friend asked me about "the other book you wrote" even though that was my first book. By that time I had given out half a dozen copies, and I just never noticed.

The brochure in question wasn't President Obama's book, it was a PR piece for his agency. While I can't say what actually happened here, I fully believe it's just an oversight no one noticed until now.

Besides, what the hell does any of this have to do with jobs and the economy? Those are the issues that matter.

Focusing on this makes critics look silly, and makes the President look like the target of fools. Expect his approval ratings to be up next week.

@ Seven 5:33 PM This isn't damning legally. Obama would still be an American citizen eligible for the presidency if he was born in Kenya to an American mother, in my opinion.

Wrong, Seven. I have posted the reverse side of the document in the past which I received when our kids were born overseas. Obama's mother was *not* 18 when he was born and the law is quite specific about citizenship for children born to US minors (and IIRC, one alien parent) overseas.

"I'm pretty sure that you don't "accidentally" say a black dude was born in Africa. They either said that because it's true, or because they thought it would get him more interest from the intelligentsia. So the question is, was he lying then or is he lying now?"

Another option is that Obama told them enough truth to make himself seem more exotic such as "My family came from Kenya," and he let the biographer run with it. Of course, this requires a level of awareness and a certain ceremonial regard for the truth that Obama has yet to display, but it is possible.

My explanation of that (although the others things you raise are worth answering) is that Senior Obama went back to Kenya and had another American wife and the son born is Obama's brother (the one who lives in China).

All those white American women look the same. And that's who the grandmother remembers being born.

Cannuck said:What we should really be talking about is why Meade has never been to Canada.

We have polar bears! curling! cold weather! and poutine!

Poutine!!!

Everyone who has ever been to Wisconsin knows that the state has cold weather, curling, brown and black bears, and the cheese curds needed to make poutine.

Having eaten poutine at a truck stop off the 401 in Windsor, I am not at all sure why it is any better than Obama's "bow wow chow". So I asked a truck driver why Canadians ended every sentence with "eh." He answered: "Spell Canada, C, A, N, A, D, A -eh."

Does anyone in their right mind believe that unknown Barack Obama wouldn't have been all over proof reading his own bio before it was included in this booklet?

This was back in 1991. He was an unknown kid.

I could see Peter Fonda maybe not caring what his press bio said. But Obama? No way. He knew exactly what he was doing here. Either he was born in Kenya or he wanted to lie and trade off the concept that he was born in Africa. No middle ground here or "typo".

@Seven Machos: I think the pamphlet is a great find by the Breitbart team no matter where it leads us. Assuming it's authentic, it does show how little vetting the media did. They deserve to be embarrassed and humiliated. I hope they find more. Plus I don't see how this hurts Romney (unless he says something stupid and he won't).

Chick -- Great. And I mean that. Now all you have to do is prove to about 51 percent probability that Obama could not possibly have gotten a Social Security number from Connecticut, and that this is an ironclad system, and that Obama's Social Security number fits your numbering scheme.

But, improvement! I'd say you have moved the case forward a good couple millimeters.

My point and only point in all this is that Obama was born in Kenya.. that because his mother was an American, it doesn't matter that he was not born on American soil is.. to use Obamas words.. above my pay grade..

My point and only point is the day Obama came out the birth canal his mother was at a country in the continent of Africa that goes by the name of Kenya.

Section 301(a) The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:(7) a person born outside the geopgraphical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions {following phrase is underlined}of parents one of whom is an alien {end underline}, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than ten years, at least five of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: ....

If Stanley Ann Dunham Obama (age 18-- I was in error when I wrote above she was 17 -- she was pregnant at 17) was in Kenya for the birth of her son Barack, he would not be a US citizen by birth.

That being said, I find it interesting that the Hawaiian newspaper birth announcement lists her parents' address as hers.

Dunham and Obama Senior were supposed to be married 6 months before Barry's birth, right?

Chick -- He could have gotten one because he was in Connecticut itinerantly at any point in his life, or because the request for his Social Security number was for any reason processed through an office in Connecticut.

JAL -- There is much more to the law than that. Your argument is ridiculous. It amounts to saying that any female younger than 19 who has a child with a foreigner has a child who is not an American citizen -- an absurd result.

But if I'm right about this.. I'm going to have such a gargantuan bragging right, I'll be the angry bird eagle of any tread I want.

Obamas behavior says hes hiding something.. come to think of it.. when someone is hiding something, accusers could make up rather sinister stuff.. a lot more sinister that just not having been born on US Soil.

Thats what annoys me about this issue.. we say we have reached a high standard of racial equanimity and point to Obama as the poster example of how far we've come.. But by not holding Obama to the same standard we would a politician running for the highest office in the land all that bragging about ourselves is hollow.

You even once told me it was "impolitic" to broach the topic of dual citizenship POTUS eligibility. Something along the lines of "we weren't ready" for that. I'm not making this up--who could?

What I probably told you was that this issue has never been litigated, because it has not ever been litigated. Thus, in our current era since Marbury made the Supreme Court supreme in all things constitutional (unwisely), and since Congress has made no specific law on the issue, there is no definitive answer to the question. And yet the answer is obvious, in front of your face. Courts will never touch this issue. It is a political question, which means something that needs to be resolved politically and not in court.

What you got out of that is hilarious.

JAL -- You are simply wrong. The paperwork you cite is a grossly incomplete statement of the law. Our law is not such that people under a certain arbitrary age who have babies abroad cannot transmit American citizenship. That would not withstand constitutional scrutiny, nor would it be just, nor would it make any sense.

A human being who emanates from an American vagina will be an American if the person's parents choose to make the person so. It is a matter of filling out forms, or simply returning to the United States for a period of time.

Your misunderstanding of the law is so complete that it is impossible to know where to start.

@7 I am waiting for you to explain why the law I quoted (and which is on the State Department website as provided for you by dbp at 6:00 PM) is not what it says.

Believe it or not, there are laws about who is and who isn't a US citizen. I know that may be hard to comprehend, but give it a try.

And I also know that English is only my primary language, so you will have to help me by telling me what I am misreading.

Tell me.

(If it makes you feel any better, the law was modified -- as dbp noted -- in 1986. But there still are laws about who is and who isn't a US citizen. Paperwork has to be filed, sure. But there are distinctions.)

I can agree with you that it is possible to emanate from an American vagina and not become an American, retroactively from birth, obviously, but it isn't an easy thing to do. You've got to have at least two people conspiring actively avoiding the United States for years.

Dunham and Obama Senior were supposed to be married 6 months before Barry's birth, right?Is there's any known public record of their marriage? Cashill, IIRC, showed they likely never set up housekeeping together, and she went to Wash state a few weeks after O was born. I think O Sr married her to keep his options open on remaining in the US.

Where would they have gotten the money to fly to Kenya? Air travel was very expensive back then.

Another option is that Obama told them enough truth to make himself seem more exotic such as "My family came from Kenya," and he let the biographer run with it. Of course, this requires a level of awareness and a certain ceremonial regard for the truth that Obama has yet to display, but it is possible.

Here is my theory, right now, subject to more information. Obama is most likely an American citizen from birth to an American woman. And, maybe he was born in Hawaii, and maybe in Africa. Right now, the Sec. of State in AZ is trying to get the state of HI to confirm that he was born there, and they have dawdled for two months now, asking about his credentials, etc. And, there are plenty of questions about his birth certificate - like how come his is green, and others from same hospital at similar times were black...

That said, my guess is that what we really have is something similar to fauxhantis Warren. If Obama had been merely black, applying to all these schools, it would have been somewhat an AA advantage. But, the son of an African politician is something quite different. We are talking super-AA. So, I would not be surprised if he played up his African father, and down his (presumed) citizenship. Remember, we also have the quasi-confirmation of the USPS worker who delivered mail to the Ayers family, and who was apparently told about the African student they were helping through school, and that student, when introduced, turned out to be apparently none other than our 44th President.

And, this would likely also explain why we haven't seen any of his school records - esp. if they noted his African heritage, and maybe even that he was admitted as an African AA applicant (as contrasted to an African-American AA applicant).

Where would they have gotten the money to fly to Kenya? Air travel was very expensive back then.

I agree, and I believe he was born in the US. But there was obviously some extra money available, because rather than living at home and paying in-state tuition, she flew to Washington and paid for an apartment.

I always wonder about that choice, why she did that.

Anyway, his whole biography is hinky in weird ways. Remember that it had to be researched to even find he had headed the Chicago Annenberg Challenge with Ayers. Until some people were willing to dig, his participation on that board had been completely buried, and reporters were believing the lie that Ayers and Obama knew each other because their kids went to school together,

BH,Obama either was born in Honolulu or he is a changeling. Stanley Ann Dunham did give birth to a mulatto baby she named Barack Hussein Obama II as listed in the Honolulu paper and agreed by all who knew the family. You cannot reasonably get around that. As for changeling; well, you would have to explainnot only how, but also why his mother would pull that off.

That the senior Ayers paid for Obama's tuition at Columbia is also attested by a former neighbor of theirs, who got it from no other than Obama himself. He says he was out front in his yard when Obama came wamdering up the street looking for the Ayers residence and, being a bit nervous, got talkative.

As Madison Man said above--This election should be about the economy--these kinds of contretemps are sideshows--but they do generate blog hits and keep the cable news channels in pundit material. So for, IMO, Mr Romney has focused on the economy. Good for him--I especially like the national debt graphic he is using.

As far as Mr Obama (and Professor Warren) gaming the AA system? of course. Are they misrepresenting their personal data for personal gain, most likely. I think it has been quite clearly established that the truth is not with Mr Obama--but as reprehensible that may be, its still about the state of our economy, and the lack of a national energy policy when the US is sitting on huge reserves of oil.

Here is my theory...Dunham flew to Africa, with Senior to get the blessings from Seniors parents, and be accepted as a full fledged African, instead of a stupid white hippie. She gets rejected because of the stupidity of the claim, but while there, pops out "Oven Fresh". The whole family flies back to Hawaii, where Dunhams parents are just overjoyed to see what their get has gotten.

But putting a face on it, they call the paper and announcer the birth of Ann's little bundle of joy. Hippie Dippy proceeds to drag little Barry from 1 third world hell hole to another, before tiring of playing Mom to the brat, and sends him packing back to Meemaw.

Meemaw realizing the Barry would have a better life as an American, gets hold of said dead guys SS#(and do we really think this isn't a thriving business?) Barry drifts back and forth between nationalities as is convenient from then on.

This theory fits ALL the details every person has mentioned. It requires no screw ups, no fake BC's, placed newspaper announcements etc. This is Occum's Razor. This is Holmes with his, "whatever is left..."

And the best point of it is I don't have to prove shit, I ain't the president with the credibility issues.

Together with the marriage announcements, it looks like it came from official sources.

I think there would be a bit of a stretch to assume that it wasn't.

The birth certificate is only a computer printout of a database record. It is perfectly plausible to imagine that that was tampered with. Look at the Left screaming about Diebold and elections and think that this computer system was under control of politicians. But the birth announcement in the printed paper carries some weight with me.

I think the simplest explanation is that Obama has always been the liar that he is now.

Nathan--appreciate your thoughts--and yes agree that the character of a candidate is an issue. And it may be an overlying issue for some people. And i totally agree the Obama is a lying sack of shit. The man is simply a phoney and regretably 53 percent of the public voted for him in the first place.

I would hope he might run on his record of stewardship--but alas that isnt going to happen because he has no record. Perhaps I am too optimistic that people will vote their pocket books.. Regretably I suspect that tangential issues like the birth crap will bring out the voting idiots once again who will pull the lever for a liar and scoundrel.

Seven Machos said..."Why do college grades matter? It's absurd. I assume that the hidden assumption is affirmative action.

Allow me to put your mind at ease. Harvard Law is really, really hard to get into. Obama almost assuredly benefited from affirmative action, but you may rest assured that his grades and test scores were still tremendous. A person with a 170 on the LSAT (close to perfect) and a 3.5 GPA stands a very low chance of getting admitted.

Moreover, who gives a shit about his grades? What are you people, academic voyeurs? What matters is that Obama is in way over his head on the economy. (He's following Bush's foreign policy, so I am essentially fine with it.) He is not a visionary. He is not a statesman. He does not what to do in his job.

Focus! You morons."

Why shouldn't Obama be as transparent as possible? Who knows what it will reveal? The fact that he is not releasing this info probably means there is something embarrassing there. To call people morons because they want him to reveal his records is rude and counter productive.

Economics may be the main topic of the campaign but Obama should be attacked everywhere he is vulnerable. The arguments that individuals find most persuasive vary from person to person.